What are the 8 wastes of lean?

Think about every action or movement in your supply chain. Do your customers derive value from this action? If not, that’s a waste. In the Toyota Production System, the precursor to today’s Lean Manufacturing, there were two main categories of “muda” or waste:

Type 1 Muda consists of activities that don’t add value to your customer, but are necessary for your process. Safety and testing standards are an example of Type 1 Muda. This type is fairly difficult to remove.

Type 2 Muda is any activity that doesn’t add value to your customer and isn’t necessary to your supply chain process. Obviously, these types of activities should be eliminated.

In the original Toyota Production System, there were seven types of Type 2 Muda. Today, Lean Manufacturing has designated eight types of waste that companies should strive to eliminate from their supply chains. The eight wastes are:

Overproduction

Defects

Waiting

Non-utilized talent

Motion

Extra (Over) Processing

Transportation

Inventory

Some people use the acronym DOWNTIME to help them remember the eight wastes. Others use TIM WOODS (with “extra” processing replaced by “over” processing). We use the order because it emphasizes the importance of overproduction and how it is often a cause of the other eight wastes.

Why is it important to remove them?

Simply put, waste elimination is one of the most effective ways to increase a business’ efficiency, and in turn, its profitability. Any time, energy, or money spent doing something that doesn’t ultimately benefit the customer is, well, wasted.

So how can I get rid of them?

At Packsize, we have created a helpful infographic specific to lean packaging that explains what each of the eight wastes are and how Packsize’s On Demand Packaging® system helps eliminate them. Each waste also comes with a bonus real-world example of a company that reduced that particular waste by using Packsize On Demand Packaging®.

And just to make everything a bit more fun, this infographic is pretty easy on the eyes. It shows the progression of a package from warehouse to delivery and where each waste can be located.

We’d like to show you an exclusive preview of what you’ll be getting. The image below is the inventory section of the infographic:

So if you’d like to learn more about these eight wastes and how Packsize can help you eliminate them, simply fill out the form at the bottom of this page. Doing that will take you to our download page where you can get a web version of the infographic.

If you would like to receive a full-size poster of this infographic, tell your Packsize representative. They’ll be able to send you a file or printed poster.